Vaperturemorning run
Posted on June 16, 2014
This is one of my favorite photos, not because of the lovely colors or the wonderful city backdrop, but because of the motion. I find motion in still photography to be one of the most challenging techniques, especially when the motion has to do with people. Traditionally, long exposure photography that captures motion is in a nature setting where the photographer places his camera on a tripod and then exposes the shot for 15-30 seconds so that water and clouds will take on that lovely smooth appearance we’ve all seen in those beautiful landscape images. Capturing motion with people requires a completely different skill set. You have a use a neutral density filter on your lens so that you can increase the exposure time without letting too much light in. You have to have your focus just right, which is quite difficult with moving subjects and manual focus lenses. You have to have the exposure just right or your subject will end up so blurry that you can tell it’s a person, or not blurry enough so that it only looks like the image is out of focus rather than in motion. You have to keep your camera VERY steady so as not to blur the background, which is quite difficult when you’re not using a tripod and shooting at f 1/10 or 1/20. And you have to do all of this in less than a second before your subject runs away and makes your shot impossible. The whole thing sounds like a big hassle, and while it does lead to quite a few messy photos, when you get it right the results make for really interesting and original photographs. Taken with a Zeiss 21mm f2.8 Distagon manual focus lens with a B+W XSPro ND Vario Filter, handheld at 1/30, Shutter Priority mode with vario filter adjustments to ensure an aperture of at least f/8.
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invitation
Posted on November 22, 2013
I love intense color that seems out of place with the rest of the scene. Colors that catch my eye always invite me over to take a look… and usually a photo.
These striking red umbrellas are put up every day right outside Four Freedoms Park next to a health-conscious food truck (that serves the most delicious mint iced tea on the planet by the way!). The park was about to close and the picnic area emptied out just in time to grab this photo. The contrast of the color with the evening shadows and the monochrome background that just is what the park is all about worked out wonderfully.
Taken with a Zeiss 21mm f2.8 lens, which is probably the one I would keep if someone told me that I had to get rid of all my lenses except one… It’s a true masterpiece of precision in every way.
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reflection
Posted on November 19, 2013
While taking a walk a few months ago, I got caught in a 30 second downpour that soaked me and my camera. On my way back home, the sun came out and a reflection of these tree limbs cast by the new light onto a puddle of rain water caught my eye.
The image was taken with a Zeiss 25mm f2 lens, which is one of my absolute favorites. It consistently draws it’s photos with a somber, darker, and subdued color profile that is somehow relaxing at the same time. It’s hard to describe without taking a few hundred photos with the lens, but I do love the cinematic look that this lens gives it’s images. This photo is different because I shot it in black and white to emphasize the reflections in a way that I was not able to do with several tries of shooting it in several different color profiles, but I think the qualities of this lens are worth mentioning. It’s small, light, has a wonderfully precise manual focus ring, and the extra 4mm of length that it has over the Zeiss 21mm actually makes more of a difference than you might think. I struggle to use the 21mm lens for my favorite style of close up with context photos because it’s always just a bit too wide for this application, but the 25mm f2 does this beautifully.
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